The People's Republic of Mt. Airy: Neighborhood identity & moral life in an urban community

• Main Author: Zelner, Sarah
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2016
• Subjects: Sociology
• ISBN: 1369510209; 9781369510201

There is a small, but distinct class of middle class, urban neighborhoods known for their diversity, countercultural commerce, left-leaning residents, and love of green space. These features are seen as defining characteristics of such neighborhoods, but the origin of these characteristics is often taken for granted. A great deal of energy is needed to create and maintain a neighborhood’s identity and to sustain attachment to it over time. This dissertation uses ethnographic observations of everyday life in Mt. Airy, a socially diverse, middle class neighborhood in Philadelphia, to shed light on how neighborhood identity is socially constructed. Drawing on four years of participant observation, I argue that Mt. Airy’s progressive identity is a socially constructed myth that residents shape through their everyday interactions and routines. Using Goffman’s dramaturgical framework and other theories from the sociology of culture, I argue that Mt. Airy’s progressive identity is a collective performance in which residents enact what they imagine to be progressive ideals, whether through everyday interactions with neighbors or the display of cultural artifacts in public spaces. These performances are centered around demonstrations of deference, which allow community leaders and residents to illustrate cooperation, avoid conflict, and include people of different sociodemographic backgrounds on the neighborhood’s front stage. This presentation supports the image of the neighborhood as a center for progressivism. However, scrutiny of this performance reveals the exclusion of lower class blacks and the promotion of traditional notions of femininity which can perpetuate the kind of social inequality that the performance is imagined to combat. To counteract these limitations, residents use alternative progressive messages such as the substitution of ideals about health and morality for concerns related to race and class. These messages reify the neighborhood’s progressive identity and reinforce belief in the progressive myth that undergirds it by allowing residents to selectively ignore evidence that undermines the progressive image. This work highlights the tenuous nature of identities built around the notion of inclusivity in the face of persistent social inequality.